Use a Japanese-style toilet bidet. Bolt-on, cold water ones are less than $50. (You get used to the cold water, surprisingly.) Warm water ones, less than $100. Top-of-the-line (entire) toilets, $4000.
I have hemorrhoids and bought a bidet about 2 years ago. I have not had a single flair up since I started using it. I cannot recommend them highly enough.
We got what's supposed to be a good one of the add-on kind, and I expected to really like it, but instead I hate it. It makes the toilet quite a bit harder to clean and I don't see any way that it's not just spraying old shit-flecks and piss drops at me, which will surely find their way to the nozzle with some regularity.
I think I'd really like a proper, separate bidet, but it turns out I hate the bolt-on kind.
Hemorrhoids are awful. I have a close circle of friends that have different careers and are in a range of physical shape and most of us have some degree of hemorrhoid issues going on. One of them had surgery for them and they said it was one of most painful surgeries they have gone through. At least we can gripe about our shared ass pains together.
I'm hijacking the thread but I'd be grateful to read about other people hemorrhoids experience. I'll start:
I had hemorrhoids which had to be operated because they become thrombosed. So I did a surgery (with general anaesthesia) to remove them.
The recovery pain was unbearable, a real torture. For like 3 months I was in pain all the time and had to take painkillers and put some special cream on the operated area (my ass). I couldn't sit and had to lie down all the time(I was lucky that I wasn't working at this time). Going to the toilet was really painful at first but that improved after some weeks. This was considered normal.
The thing is that even now, almost 5 years after the operation, it still bothers me, depending on my stool (if it's hard it's a big problem). Does it ever heal?
All in all unless really required I don't recommend operating your hemorrhoids. Change your diet, use a bidet, use creams and try to avoid surgery!!!
i had an anal fissure for some time (6 weeks) and it was also unbearable. opiods didn't help at all. the drs told me something about them not working in that part of the body. hot baths several times a day. they wanted me to insert some cream up there using my pinky, which just make the pain worse by re-aggravating the area. I'm still not sure how it eventually healed, but I really started to understand why people in chronic pain would consider suicide.
Been there and can sympathise. After a couple of weeks you literally wonder if this is your entire life now and if you want to live like it.
The worst bit though was how I got the fissure. I had a nearly completely obstructed anus. The human body will clear that if you like it or not, with or without medical intervention and it will do damage on the way out. Ugh.
this was my experience with surgery ~5 months ago 100%. the surgery helped, but certainly didn't "fix" it in any sense of that word.
the pain was super interesting. i have pretty bad OCD and it was strange to note that there are levels of pain where anxiety (or any other thought) is just a luxury you don't have time for.
i have a new appreciation and empathy for people who suffer with chronic pain.
The body knows how to prioritize. I'm a terrible sleeper. Change positions all the time, always too warm or too cold, wake up and need to go to the washroom, think about an itch and suddenly it gets unbearable etc.
So then a broken collarbone. And can only sleep in one position and getting into and out of bed is excruciatingly painful. And nothing itches, temperature is OK, sleep, if anything, better than usual because a lot of the usual things just aren't worth it, you know it took a lot of trouble to get into position just so and things aren't painful if you don't move, so make the most of it.
Long ago in the age before the semiotics of standing-desk superiority came into fashion, I worked with a gentleman who made his own stander from plywood and screws and so forth, and stood all day every day, and he was in fact a Lisp programmer in good standing. It was rumored that he had patootie problems but I chose not to pry.
Sitting down is not a great position for a human or any other animal. Good ones are on your knees (like Japanese) or squatting (if you can hold this position for a while, you can put something under your heels to make it easier), or lying down
I had the surgery a long time ago. It was not terrible, and without too many disgusting details, self-care afterwards is the most important thing.
Funny story: when I was at Google, a friend and his wife came to visit. She went into the ladies', and beforehand I told her about the bidets in the toilets. She came out and said, "My God, you have to study to use one of those!"
"A student asked the Master: 'I can't sit. I can't concentrate. How do I cure my hemorroids?'
The Master replied, 'Have you tried Lisp?'
The student stood pensive, then was not in pain anymore."